to be human
by Estora
Summary: He tries.


_Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations belonging to BBC's _Doctor Who_. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended._

**to be human**

He tries.

* * *

><p>A name. That's the hardest one, he thinks. He can't go around calling himself 'Doctor', not anymore (and never did, really — he's technically only a hand that's a few months old with a body attached and over nine hundred years of memory). There are only two names that sound right to him: Doctor and Donna. But both are useless now, especially because he's pretty sure Donna is a woman's name. He wants to use 'Doctor' but remembers the look on Rose's face from the other day when he tried, and doesn't know if he can live out the rest of his (short, human) life seeing that expression.<p>

John Smith, he considers, but it's the name he used for men that weren't real.

He (thinks) he's real.

"John Noble?" Rose asks, and he can tell she's just a bit relieved that he didn't choose 'Doctor' instead.

* * *

><p>A background. Names for parents who never existed. Place of birth, date of birth, fake childhood, fake address, fake schools, fake awards, fake diplomas and degrees and honours, so he can get a job. Bank details, tax number, driver's license, lots and lots of cards for identification and money, and clothes and a house and health fund and insurance and food and water and local politics and disgusting bodily functions and after a while it all just becomes <em>stuff<em>.

Humans, he thinks. Everything has to be so bloody complicated. It's as though they _enjoy _making their lives hard for themselves.

_Ourselves_, he corrects.

* * *

><p>When he was a Time Lord —<p>

No. Wait.

According to memories that belonged to the Time Lord who gave John Noble his face, everything was bearable because everything seemed so small. When you have all of space and time as your backyard, things become inconsequential. If they're painful, they hurt briefly, but they belong to a tiny moment in time and two hundred years later the pain's still sort of there, but it's been there for so long that it's easy to forget it hurts.

Human lives are devastatingly short, which means everything is so much bigger.

Memories hit him when he least expects them to, only instead of being a wistful, one-second gut-twisting flash of guilt and pain, it's like being buried under an avalanche of nine hundred years of regrets and agony.

* * *

><p>He watches his reflection in the mirror sometimes, when he's alone. Sometimes he pretends that man who stares back at him is <em>him<em>, the _real_Doctor. Sometimes he confesses, "I don't know how to be human."

On more hopeful days, the ones he wakes up on and thinks to himself, _maybe I can do this_, the Doctor replies, "Want to hear a secret? No human knows how to be human." He'll wink, then say, "Why don't you go find out?"

* * *

><p>Rose tries.<p>

He loves her for that. She teaches him the small things that make humans human, and he tries to learn.

There are the small, shining moments, like holding hands, singing songs in the shower, family dinners, reading books to young children. One night they curl up together on the couch with a doona and share a tub of chocolate ice cream while watching _Sleepless in Seattle._

It's very domestic, but it's soothing, and it is during times like these John thinks he can do this. Just _this_. Small moments that, in the long run, seem so big and beautiful and for a while make everything seem worth it.

At Torchwood, he works there as Doctor John Noble, physicist, and he grins to himself when people address him as "Doctor".

* * *

><p>Then there are the large, ugly moments.<p>

Humans have this pattern of sleep-eat-work-shit-sleep. John follows it as best he can: sleeps for eight hours, eats breakfast in the morning, works and plays with physics equations, goes to the bathroom with alarming human frequency, and returns to the Tyler mansion to sleep again.

And there, at a home that only moves with time in a very straight (slow, agonising) line, he can't seem to get it right for her. He doesn't know what Rose wants — whether she does want him to be the Doctor or not.

He figures it out eventually: she wants him to be the Doctor, complete with the TARDIS and adventures and aliens and running. But he can't offer her that life, not anymore, so she doesn't want him to have the Doctor's face and personality if she can't get the package deal. She wants him to be John Noble and human so she doesn't have to mix him up with the Doctor, but he's not very good at being human and she knows it.

(She makes sure to always, always call him 'John'.)

Martha told him once that he made a rubbish human.

Rose tries, but he knows the small, shining domestic moments were never what she wanted and will never be enough for her.

(And if he's completely honest, being Doctor John Noble of physics isn't quite the same as being the Doctor.)

* * *

><p>Rose says nothing when he destroys the Dimension Cannon. Quite literally, says nothing — she ignores him for the better part of two months.<p>

He knows she would have used it eventually, because he knows he might have used it eventually as well.

For the first time in a year, John wonders why the Doctor left him in this universe: so that Rose could keep an eye on him, or so that he could keep an eye on her.

* * *

><p>"I don't know how to be human."<p>

On bad days, the Doctor in the mirror replies, "You don't know how to be a Time Lord, either."

* * *

><p>John Noble trying to be human is like watching a fish drowning in a small plastic bag of water, he thinks. Pathetic and sort of amusing to onlookers, but painful and embarrassing for the fish who just hopes it'll be over soon and someone will take pity on him and release him back into the sea.<p> 


End file.
